Journalism goes wrong and just keeps getting worse.

Yesterday, a representative from Current TV's Viewpoint show contacted some people at Condé Nast, the owner of Ars Technica. Current TV was preparing a story about "the FCC’s proposal to create free Internet access with the creation of 'super Wi-Fi' networks across the country," this person said, and the show needed a tech journalist to talk about it on the air. Uh-oh.

If you read Ars or follow wireless tech, you already know what goes wrong in this anecdote. Yes, this week saw a story become a national sensation—free Wi-Fi for everyone! A virtual Oprah Winfrey would descend from on high and bestow free Internet connections onto us all, eliminating the need for pricey home Internet service and cell phone bills forever.

The frenzy began Monday morning when the Washington Post reported that "the federal government wants to create super Wi-Fi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad in reach that consumers could use them to make calls or surf the Internet without paying a cellphone bill every month." Best of all, network access would be free. "If all goes as planned, free access to the Web would be available in just about every metropolitan area and in many rural areas," the Post reported. The clear implication: this was a bold—and entirely brand-new—plan.

Unfortunately, the piece was basically nonsense. What had really happened was in fact unbelievably boring: the Post simply observed an incremental development in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) at the Federal Communications Commission over the issue of incentive auctions that might free up some additional unlicensed spectrum for so-called "White Space Devices" (read our explainer) operating in and around the current over-the-air TV bands. (I told you it was boring; in addition, the basic debate over White Space Devices was actually settled in 2008.)

From this thin material, which basically consisted of Internet service providers and tech companies sniping at each other in long legal documents, with no decisions being made by anyone and no new proposals of anything, the Post then reported—on the front page, above the fold of the country's eighth-most highly circulated newspaper—that the FCC plan could lead to free Internet for most US residents.

While the long-running White Spaces debate might improve Internet access in the US, it will absolutely not lead to free Internet for everyone. And yet the idea that FREE WIRELESS INTERNET might soon blanket the country shambles on, zombie-like.

(Not) setting things right

After the Post piece, the story spread like wildfire, repeated in both mainstream media and tech publications. One of my favorite examples said, "The Federal Communications Commission wants to make the Internet as pervasive and free as air" with a nationwide Wi-Fi network "so expansive, fast, and strong that everyone could make VoIP calls and surf the Internet for free."

It got a little better when sensible people joined the fray. Ars took a tough line against the original report, but we were hardly alone. Dan Frommer quickly debunked the myth. So did Paul Waldman of The American Prospect, Karl Bode of DSLReports, and Jerry Brito of the Technology Liberation Front. Sam Gustin of Time later weighed in with a wrap-up of the whole mess, as did TechDirt. Former Wired.com editor-in-chief Evan Hansen and Andrew Sullivan of the noted political blog The Dish also helped spread the word that this was a myth.

Yet three days later, the story lives. The Post wrote a "follow-up" article but never corrected its original account. A number of news sites did make prominent corrections to their original stories; many others didn't bother, and their pieces still link back to the original Post article. The story threatens to keep spreading as PR firms try to promote their client's services with press releases touting the FCC's free Wi-Fi plan (example). Even Friday morning, after the article you're reading right now was published, the Portland Press Herald ran an editorial titled "Our View: FCC plan for free Wi-Fi would spur economy."

And as I noted at the beginning of this article, Current TV was preparing a story that would reiterate the FCC's plan to blanket the country in free Wi-Fi more than 48 hours after the "new" idea had been whacked with the Shovel of Reality.

Since Current TV was looking for a reporter to talk about the great free Wi-Fi on the air, I said I would do it. But when I told them in advance that there is no new free Wi-Fi plan, they killed the segment before we could do an interview. (Hilariously enough, Current TV's own website had already reported Tuesday that "The FCC Really Has No Free Wi-Fi Plan," but I guess the TV producers on staff hadn't seen that.) I don't blame the producers for passing on the story, of course—we do it at Ars all the time when something isn't what it first seemed. But an opportunity to set the record straight was lost.

The end result? The story is still out there. Three days after anyone who knew what they were talking about debunked the free Wi-Fi myth, three days after the Post was notified of its mistake, the false story is still published on the Post website and many other sites as if it were true all along. Here's a sampling of articles (emphasis on sampling) that remain online in more or less their original, incorrect form:

Business Insider: Telecom Corporations Are Trying To Stop The Government From Offering Free 'Super Wi-Fi'

Daily Caller: FCC wants free Wi-Fi for all (This one has a tiny update at the end noting that the "veracity of the original story by The Washington Post is now being disputed by industry experts," with a link to a new story. That's textbook "false balance.")

Motherboard: The FCC Wants to Blanket the Country in Free Wi-Fi (Update) (This is another one with an update at the end, which only indirectly suggests the story might not be entirely true).

The FCC process underlying all these stories is actually quite complicated. A simple way of explaining it is that the Commission is preparing an incentive auction in which TV broadcasters would give up some of their long-held airwaves in the 600MHz band. Some of these airwaves could be sold to private interests, and others could be made "unlicensed," meaning they could be used similarly to today's Wi-Fi services but cover larger geographic areas because of their lower frequencies. This would add some airwaves to the "White Spaces" movement, which uses empty TV broadcast channels to provide Internet access, sometimes for free, sometimes for pay.

Municipalities could use the extra airwaves to provide network services (with your tax dollars), or commercial interests could use them to build out networks—unlicensed spectrum can be used by anyone. But White Spaces has already been around for several years, and there's little reason to expect that any new auction will lead to an explosion in use along the lines predicted by the original Post story. It's not even clear when the auction might be held. The only recent development was the FCC taking comments from tech companies.

A difficult debunking

Among the most troubling questions from this episode is why the Internet's ability to spread information at gigabit speed didn't result in the story being killed.

I became involved in this story in a way I didn't expect. After posting my own debunking Monday night, I tried to spread my story and the stories from fellow debunkers to turn the tide against the inexorable spread of this free Wi-Fi myth. It didn't work.

I ended up talking to the Post reporter on the phone and e-mailing with the Post's ombudsman. The ombudsman told me that the FCC confirmed to the Post that the "free Wi-Fi" story was correct, which is odd, because I also talked to people at the FCC who said the exact opposite. Similarly, a TechCrunch reporter wrote that "my contact at the FCC told me that there was no such plan" as the one reported by the Post.

The Post reporter was genuinely nice and seemed eager to correct the record, but the execution was lacking. She followed up with a more realistic piece on page 14 titled "Five things to know about 'free' public Wi-Fi." It explains some of the realities of the situation, such as the fact that the FCC won't be building any networks itself and that whatever networks are built won't necessarily be used to provide free Internet access.

The Post's follow-up story was all well and good, but the original story was never corrected or retracted. (The followup said the original "sparked a lot of questions from readers," but didn't reveal that it was flat-out wrong.) In addition to getting the front-page treatment, the initial Post story was coupled with a cringe-inducing video titled "FCC offers path to free Internet access." A host begins the spot by asking, "What if Wi-Fi didn't come from a router in your living room but instead from powerful TV antennas? And better yet, what if you didn't have to pay for it? That possibility could become a reality across the US thanks to a new proposal by the Federal Communications Commission." (Have I made it clear that the proposal is not new and never required "free access," either?)

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. No, this man is not going to replace your home Internet and cell phone connection with free Wi-Fi.

The Post reporter went on NPR Tuesday, spreading the free Wi-Fi myth. After listening to the piece, I contacted NPR to let them know they had it wrong. I never heard back. Just like the Post, NPR didn't correct its first story. And just like the Post again, NPR made things more confusing by writing a follow-up titled "Viral story about free Wi-Fi spotlights mostly hidden policy war." (Money quote: "Basically, there is no new FCC plan that will in the relatively near future lead to an explosion of free Wi-Fi.")

Look, I've been a journalist more than half my life. I spent years writing for newspapers—I know how this works. A journalist gets a story completely wrong and doesn't want to believe it. Instead of correcting the original story, a "follow-up" gets written to give the appearance that no correction is needed—the issue just needs to be explained in further detail. The real purpose is to avoid correcting the record while implying that the original story wasn't wrong.

What should the Post have done to set things right? The best example comes from a Mashable writer named Alex Fitzpatrick. He initially wrote a story repeating the Post's account, titled "Government Wants to Create Free Public 'Super Wi-Fi.'" When he realized his mistake—an honest one that many others made after reading the Post article—he wrote a follow-up titled "The Government Is Not Building a National Wi-Fi Network." The piece ended with the words "Mashable apologizes for any confusion created by our earlier reporting on the subject" and the original piece was updated to say that "The government is not building national Wi-Fi networks. Mashable regrets the error."

It doesn't get any more clear than that. Fitzpatrick called it "a learning experience for a young reporter," an honorable way of saying that when you get it wrong, it's your responsibility to make it right.

If only the country's eighth-largest newspaper followed the same code.

83 Reader Comments

Wow, when I click that Washington Post link I get redirected (eventually) to Facebook with an error associated with a permissions request. I don't know what it was trying to do, or why it failed, but I hope a privacy setting I have on FB blocked it...

Wow, when I click that Washington Post link I get redirected (eventually) to Facebook with an error associated with a permissions request. I don't know what it was trying to do, or why it failed, but I hope a privacy setting I have on FB blocked it...

While off subject -- i've been having the same issue. I think it has something to do with the the sharing features on the article that causes it. who knows.

It got worse. One article in my Facebook feed (a headliner from some news site an old acquaintance follows) credited Obama for the free wi-fi "act," working with the fcc to ensure that America had this free wi-fi.

Does no one fact check anymore? I linked him your original debunk, but still. News just makes crap up these days.

To the people asking about the Facebook redirect. It was a glitch in the sharing features on many sites across the Web. Apparently it is fixed now (I don't have Facebook so u can't check). If it isn't, sign out of FB and the problem will go away.

Popular Science: how the mighty have fallen. Many decades ago, when I was actually young, this magazine was an inspiration to me. More recently it occasionally would have a good article, But I cancelled it when they had this big report about people 'sensitive' to cell phone transmissions. It seemed to consist entirely of interviews with 'sensitive' people without even bothering to look at the science! I'm not surprised they fell for this one. They should rename it Popular PseudoScience.

Why does this story smell like the story of the fall of the Berlin Wall?

I remember how initially rumors appeared that East Germany would relax it's rules towards visiting West Berlin. Suddenly tens of thousands people believed that the wall would come down and went to it. The East German government was so inundated that one thing lead to another and despite the best efforts of the East German to maintain some control, the Wall came tumbling down.

When an idea's time has come, it's come, and perhaps the idea of free low speed wifi has come.

This free wifi internet story jives nicely with the plank of WaPo's chosen platform that wants to declare internet a human right and a basic necessity--on someone else's dime. This is propaganda meant to entice more low information voters.

Well.... there is free wifi, actually there are several such ideas and implementations around. You should read Ars sometimes.

... and also air is not free. Air is considered a national resource. Airlines are paying quite large amount of money for the countries as the airplanes are using "their" air...space to travel through. (Telco companies pay for use of frequency bands as well, but that's a lump sum usually.) Humans are weird. Animals just go/swim/fly across borders, hell they are even flying without paying money for using the air, I wonder when people will try and sew them

Of course, the other possibility is the the Washington Post was fully aware of the fact their story was false, but wanted to get people talking about it enough to create a pressure on politicians to make it happen. If enough people demanded it, it could be done.

"It doesn't get any more clear than that. Fitzpatrick called it "a learning experience for a young reporter," an honorable way of saying that when you get it wrong, it's your responsibility to make it right.

If only the country's ELECTED OFFICIALS followed the same code."

FTFY

"People believe what they want to believe, facts be damned. The liberal mindset works in this way exclusively, I don't know why this is a surprise to anyone. "

Was the irony intentional, or do you not realize that this behavior isn't exclusive to Liberals, nor, apparently, are you immune from it for thinking this despite the evidence against it?

Hey, we're supposed to get free healthcare too. Why is this so hard to believe?

/sarcasm

I would be a lot less skeptical if they had reported that all Americans would have access to free health care. Growing up in Canada, I always thought health care was free for everyone, everywhere. It wasn't until I got older that I realized that wasn't true.

Of course, the other possibility is the the Washington Post was fully aware of the fact their story was false, but wanted to get people talking about it enough to create a pressure on politicians to make it happen. If enough people demanded it, it could be done.

It was much simpler than that. The reporter wanted to write a good story and got it all wrong, and then for some reason the Post didn't think it was bad enough that it should be corrected. Or maybe it would be too embarrassing to correct it.

Of course, the other possibility is the the Washington Post was fully aware of the fact their story was false, but wanted to get people talking about it enough to create a pressure on politicians to make it happen. If enough people demanded it, it could be done.

I don't always agree with the Left-Leaning WaPo but no way do I think they knowingly spread false information. It's far more likely that the reporter simply misunderstood or mis-interpreted her source information.